


as the sun holds the moon

by Destina



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean get back on the road together, but Dean is still struggling to find his way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as the sun holds the moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Janissa11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janissa11/gifts).



> Written and posted to LJ in 2010; posted to AO3 in June 2015. Thank you to dotfic for beta.

They leave Sam's piece-of-crap temporary wheels by the railroad bridge and they drive, non-stop, down a road Dean swears he's seen before a hundred times. These roads are all alike, the lines and the medians, the pull-outs and the drop-offs, no point in stopping to memorize the scenery on a known road. Sam sits quiet beside him, not quite staring out the window, not quite looking at the map, a bundle of nerves and apology hunched down in the seat as if Dean might forget he's there if he's small enough, but that isn't possible; even in his absence, Sam was huge, bigger than everything. There'll never be a way for Dean to explain, and he's never going to try. 

Eventually, they stop in a one-horse town called Amarosa Falls, two miles off the edge of the highway at a motel Dean thinks of as seedy, even by their standards. Beige paint is hanging onto the siding with pure determination, pieces flaking off like dandruff every time the wind picks up. He leaves the engine idling, glances at Sam, ready to drive on. Sam squints at the half-lit neon as if deciding, then nods twice. 

Dinner is two blue-plate specials from the diner next door -- less a diner than a one-room shack with a coffeemaker and some ramshackle tables left over from a better restaurant's demolition. They slide their big bodies into the tiny slots between bench and table and eat with their eyes down, devouring dense slices of meatloaf as big as Dean's hand and mashed potatoes covered with gravy.

All through dinner, Dean watches Sam, the hunch of his shoulders, the way he won't meet Dean's eyes, and he waits. 

It doesn't come until he's unlocking the door, juggling the six pack in its rumpled paper dress. From behind him, Sam reaches out for the bag, and when he has it, he says, "Maybe I should get my own room."

"Maybe you should shut the hell up," Dean says immediately. He glares over his shoulder at Sam, who has the sixer clutched up to his chest like a shield. His eyes are in shadow -- not that Dean is looking too closely at that. Not now; he can't decipher tricks of the light. Dean shoves the door open with his shoulder just because he can, and reaches in for the light switch. "And then you should get your ass in here with the beer."

As if he hadn't asked himself that same question a hundred times during dinner, whether he still needs the space to sort things out, or if Sam does. But he's over it, mostly, and Sam needs to be over it, too. 

Everything else is just the same as it used to be, but not. The threads have separated just enough to make the holes visible, pinpricks in the fabric of what they always were, teamwork Dean has come to rely on as much as he relies on his guns to fire and his car to start on cue. Sam heads for the same bed as Dean, stops, backs up; takes the other bed instead. Sam puts his pink sparkle princess toothbrush down beside Dean's, sets up the kit on the counter instead of waiting for Dean to do it. He turns on the TV, spends too much time hunting for something Dean will like, and ignores his laptop, left untouched on the bed where he dropped it. 

Sam watches him, all the time, worried glances full of apology. 

Dean lets him. He's just bruised enough to have missed that kind of superficial attention from Sam, though he's not ever going to admit it. Certainly not to Castiel, who was way too fucking perceptive for Dean, and whose observations had to be pushed back, away, so Dean wouldn't have to think about them at all. 

The empty seat beside him after Sam left had been filled with relief, but there was also loneliness, and nothing in this world can make Dean whole without Sam. He gets it, but maybe he's not going to forgive Sam (or Castiel, or the rest of those dickless angels) for forcing him to remember it. Maybe. There's time to decide, later, when he doesn't have a tired headache pounding all the way down to his toes.

Sam defaults to filling the silence with small talk about chopping lemons and washing dishes at some random bar where he'd been working. Dean listens while he works his way through three beers, and doesn't even try to ignore the rage building in him when Sam tells him haltingly about those fucking hunters who held him down and forced demon blood down his throat. 

"Like we didn't have enough problems," Dean says, which is not at all related to any of the things he's feeling, but Sam nods anyway. There's a haunted look in Sam's eyes, and every cell in Dean's body wants to kill the men who put it there. It's the Winchester genetics at play, or maybe just Dean's wiring, faulty and predictable though it may be. 

Some of what Sam tells him, what he skips and what he glosses over, makes Dean wonder when exactly Sam stopped wishing for normal, or wanting kind women who sympathize, who don't turn away when they learn Sam's secrets. It seems so long ago, that night Dean met Jessica, the night that ended any chance Sam ever had at being who he was never meant to be. 

Dean's head is pounding, and he crawls into bed feeling old, thinking about how Dad used to look after his epic hunts, the way he seemed indestructible and on the edge of falling apart, all at once. 

**

In the morning, Dean rolls over and stares at the ceiling. The ache in his head has migrated to every part of his body, and he says out loud, "I feel like ass."

Sam pokes his shaggy head out of the bathroom. There are dark circles under his eyes. "You really want to give me an opening like that first thing in the morning?" Sam says, mouth quirking with the start of a smile. It's such a rare thing, Sam's smile, that Dean wants to engage it, but there's not really time; two seconds later, he's hanging off the edge of the bed with his head in the trashcan, puking his guts out. 

Sam rounds the end of the bed and says with some alarm, "Hey. Dean." 

Dean grunts in response, because there's a good chance if he opens his mouth to tell Sam to fuck off and let him die, he will continue puking instead of making words. 

When he finally puts the trash can down, Sam takes it away without another word. Dean wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, willing the nausea away, because it's complete bullshit that he should go weeks without his brother, time travel into the future, stare Lucifer in the eye, and then after all that -- be wiped out by the ordinary flu. 

"It's probably not the flu," Sam says from the bathroom, with that freakish way he has of hearing what Dean's thinking even though it's not actually possible. "It's just that all the stress is too much for your delicate constitution." 

"I might be dying, but I can still take you," Dean threatens. All recent evidence to the contrary. 

"I'll clear my calendar." Sam rounds the end of the bed and sits down, and he looks at Dean for a while, long enough to give Dean the fidgets. Then Sam, damn him, reaches over to place a wet washcloth on Dean's unbearably hot forehead with such tenderness, it's all Dean can do not to punch him right in the jaw. This is not Sam's job, and Dean doesn't want it, can't stand the idea of falling apart like this right in front of Sam at the moment he's supposed to be building something with his little brother, or rebuilding it, who knows which it is at this point. He shivers, frowning. 

Sam reaches down, grabs the blanket, and pulls it up to Dean's chest. He doesn't _quite_ tuck it in around Dean, but his hands skim down Dean's sides, snugging the blanket up to him for warmth. 

Dean flushes hot even under the fever, because Sam is reading him like an open book, which means he had better not plan on playing poker with Sam anytime soon. He tugs the the washcloth down over his face, hiding Sam's amused look from him and hopefully hiding his ridiculous lack of bluff from Sam. 

Concealed under a rough white veil, he dozes off, and when he wakes, tomato-smell fills the room. He gives his stomach a second to consider whether or not it's going to cooperate, and when it decides to be calm, he fishes the washcloth off his face. Sam has the hotplate going, and there's a pan heating over it. Tomato rice soup, is Dean's bet; the same thing he used to feed Sam when he was little and went through one of the hundred different colds Dad was too angry or busy or wounded to deal with. 

Sam glances at Dean over his shoulder and says, "Take the aspirin."

There's a glass of water and three aspirin on the nightstand. Dean stares at them for a second and then says hoarsely, "Where's a hot nurse when you need one, Sammy? That's all I'm sayin'."

"When they heard the patient was you, all the hot nurses within a hundred miles went on strike. So you're stuck with me." 

Dean sighs, because the universe clearly hates him, but he takes the aspirin, because he feels like he's on fire. Then he smoothes the blanket down over his lap and musters up his best smirk. "Bring me my soup, bitch." 

Sam doesn't answer, but the tension that's kept Sam's shoulders hitched up in the vicinity of his ears eases up, and Sam's shoulders drop down to their normal level. Sam pours the steaming soup into a bowl and when he turns around, Dean adds, "And crackers. There had better be crackers."

There are no crackers, and Dean damn well knows it, but the moment exasperation writes itself all over Sam's face, it's as if the universe rights itself. This is how they'll go on, then, with their patterns written at the bottom of a weathered multi-purpose bowl, and Sam sitting up all night because he's ridiculous, and because he's developed some stupid notions about what it takes to be a good brother.

Dean isn't really in any position to argue about that, but maybe they'll talk about that, later. Maybe. After the soup is gone. 

~~*~~


End file.
